


With Whiskers

by foolishly



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Fluff, Liam Payne/Sophia Smith - Freeform, M/M, Niall Breslin/Louis Tomlinson - Freeform, Niall Horan/Jesy Nelson - Freeform, Past minor character death, Romance, Selkies
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-03
Updated: 2014-07-03
Packaged: 2018-02-07 08:03:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,302
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1891440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foolishly/pseuds/foolishly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Zayn is everything he thinks he's supposed to be, but floundering under the monotony and bruising under the weight of it all on his shoulders. Enter Harry: apparent nomad, self-proclaimed philosopher, particularly awful guitar player, and exceptional weirdo. AKA selkie!Harry.</p>
            </blockquote>





	With Whiskers

**Author's Note:**

> Standard Disclaimer: This story is not true.

**With Whiskers**  
 _chapter one_

When Zayn leaves for work at eight in the morning, there's a busker kid sat on the front steps of the block of flats with a manky looking guitar in his lap. He's got dark curls that are swept back by a green scarf wrapped around his head, and is wearing a tropical print shirt unbuttoned to bare most of his chest even though it's chilly out, and a pair of worn brown Chelsea boots that are coming apart at the toes. Zayn almost hits him with the door before he catches it - "Oh, sorry, mate, didn't see you," - and the busker looks up curiously, breaking into a rather inappropriately intense smile when his eyes land on Zayn. Zayn smiles back bemusedly. The kid is good looking in a weird sort of way; his green eyes are too big for his head and his mouth is shaped funny, and his features kind of look like they don't belong to him, but it works. He's well fit, really.

"Hullo," says the busker, blinking slowly. 

"Hi," says Zayn. He's still holding the door open from when he stepped out. The kid just keeps gazing at him serenely. Zayn gestures inside. "Are you going in?"

"Nope," says the busker. "Thanks, though. Nice of you."

"Right," says Zayn. "See you."

The kid's funny mouth pulls into an even bigger smile, lines crinkling the corners of his eyes and deep dimples in his cheeks. "Yeah," he says sincerely. "Hey, I hope you have a good day, mate."

Zayn scratches the back of his neck, baffled and unreasonably charmed. The busker is staring politely, and Zayn resituates his bag on his shoulder and leaves, mildly unnerved.

**

Zayn's office building is a high up in Canary Wharf, and no matter how early he manages to drag himself out of bed, he's always at least fifteen minutes late. Due to the busker and a missed bus, signal problems on the tube, and the inherent bad luck of a Monday morning, he rushes into the lift just after ten, sweating in his shirt and smart trousers and forty-five minutes past any reasonable degree of tardiness. He swipes his ID over the sensor on his floor to unlock the door and tiptoes round the corner, bracing himself to walk past his boss's office. He jumps nearly a foot in the air when a hand grips his shoulder from behind.

It's only his friend Niall, who cackles madly. "Sorry, mate, did I scare you?"

"Arsehole," Zayn says, relieved enough to laugh. 

Niall pats his back. "Don't need to be sneaky. Ben's at a client meeting."

"I swear I left on time this morning," Zayn says.

"Sure, yeah," says Niall. He pats Zayn's back and leads the way down the corridor to their desks. Zayn's got a cubicle by a window, which caused quite an upset among the staff who have worked here longer and not been promoted yet. He'd give it up just to escape all the drama, except he gets to sit next to Niall, and Niall is the only thing keeping him sane while he's here, so everyone else can fuck right off.

The low wall between their cubicles is decorated with things Niall has collected or brought in over the past six months: starfish lights that blink distractingly, two unused crackers from last Christmas, the cast of South Park as bobbleheads, a Derby County stress ball shaped like a ram and a robot tyrannosaurus rex that lets out a tinny, rather feeble roar whenever anyone walks by. Niall has pictures of his dad and his mum and himself with his mates back home in Ireland framed, and a few printouts of his baby nephew pinned up, and he's more than willing to talk to anyone who walks up all about them. 

In contrast, Zayn's desk is quite bare. He's is private by nature, and he's wary of allowing anymore of his personal life encroach on his career than he's already been forced to, but he wonders if people judge him on it the way they seem to be judging him on everything else, undeserved cubicle by a window with a lone blue water bottle, next to Niall's whole life spread out in color.

"How was your weekend?" Niall asks once they're settled in and Zayn's waiting for his laptop to start up. 

"It was all right, kept to myself mostly. Helped Louis with his lesson planning. Slept a lot," Zayn shrugs. "Yours?"

Niall leans back in his chair in a casual sprawl, propping his feet up on his desk. "It was really chill. My cousin was in town, so we had a bit of a party for the London Irish Crew Friday night, and had a barbecue Saturday that lasted pretty much until yesterday morning, and then we had brunch and played miniature golf. And then my mate had a bit of another party last night. Not much going on."

"Yeah, that sounds really chill and boring," Zayn drawls.

Niall makes a face. "Guess you're right. Never seems like much when I'm there, but I'm exhausted today. Went a bit too hard on me knee." He pats his leg, wincing. He's only just got off crutches and out of his brace after surgery a few months ago. "Good thing my physio was too busy with your flatmate to come out with us, he'd've killed me."

Zayn snorts, and wheels his chair closer to his desk to type in his Windows password when the prompt comes up. Niall's physio is also from his hometown in Ireland, and also called Niall, but his surname is Breslin and he goes by Bressie. He and Louis met through Niall at a pub several weeks ago, and have spent nearly every waking moment together since.

"He took Louis to The Ivy Saturday night," Zayn says.

"You're shitting me," says Niall, laughing out loud. "That's so romantic!"

"Louis's been skipping round like a schoolgirl with a crush for weeks," says Zayn. His laptop finally sputters to life, and he rolls his chair closer to his desk and reluctantly pushes the button to open Outlook. He didn't check his email all weekend, so it's bound to be a mess.

"Bressie's a sap," says Niall. "I always knew that, but his idea of a romantic date is usually pints at a pub and a roll in the sack. This is like, proper courting."

"Who's courting what?" says a new voice. The back of Zayn's neck tingles and he looks up to see Perrie Edwards from HR, who sits across from Niall, standing up in her chair to lean over the tall cubicle wall between their desks. She gives Zayn a dashing smile. "Hey there, kidda. Finally made it in, huh?"

"Oh," Zayn says intelligently. "Hey, Pez. I left on time this morning, I swear."

Perrie just grins. She's chewing gum and wearing shiny lip gloss and purple eye makeup to match her lavender hair, which is pulled into a complicated looking twist and clipped at the back of her head, and her nose ring glints in the overhead lights. Zayn's had such a crush on her since he started working here. He wants to dazzle her with a smouldering look, say something smooth like _I'm courting you, cutie. Pick you up at eight?_ , but it all sounds so stupid in his head. She's so far out of his league and so funny and great that he gets overwhelmed and ends up stuttering like an idiot whenever they talk. 

"Did you get your coffee?" she ask him. "I brought you boys macchiatos."

"No," says Zayn, narrowing his eyes at Niall, who is unapologetic. 

"It was going to get cold," says Niall.

"Arsehole," Zayn says again.

Perrie scrunches her face up. "Sorry, Nialler. Didn't mean to get you in trouble with our Zayn."

"It's okay," Zayn assures her, trying to give her a casually flirty smile, but he thinks he probably just looks overeager. Niall just laughs, slapping his knee like it's the funniest thing he's ever heard. 

"'In trouble with our Zayn,'" he repeats, as though the notion is absurd. Zayn would stomp on his foot if he could. Niall keeps chuckling, wiping at his eyes. "That's good."

Perrie studies him like Niall's a particularly interesting nature documentary, smiling with her eyebrows drawn together, and then she pops her gum at him imperiously. "You're a bit mad, aren't you?" she says.

"You guys are just funny," says Niall.

Perrie winks at Zayn, and then disappears behind the wall again. Zayn shakes his head, stomach fluttering pleasantly, but the wan smile drops off his face when Outlook finishes loading. He has fifty-seven unread emails. He makes it through fifteen of them, prioritizing the ones marked urgent. He hates talking on the phone, so he makes the four phone calls he needs to make as quickly as possible. The last one is with his least favorite client, who has a bad habit of talking down to Zayn even when he's in a good mood, and right now he's angry about pricing - which Zayn has fuck all to do with. When Zayn tries to explain, the client tells him he can't understand what he's saying and to speak more clearly. After he does this three times, Zayn is so frazzled about enunciating that he loses the thread of conversation, and the client hangs up with threats to speak with Zayn's manager.

By the time it's over his cheeks are red and he's sitting with his shoulders curved in, feeling small and childish and incompetent, and it's so frustrating that he wants to punch something. He can't bear to look at Niall, even though he can feel the sympathetic eyes aimed right at him, so he goes to fill up his water bottle. He ducks into the kitchen just in time to overhear two people in the hall, a guy whose voice he doesn't recognize and a girl who sits nearby him and Niall called Claudia. 

"Did you hear Ben Winston is thinking of giving the Malik kid the PhotoDev account?" the man is saying.

Claudia scoffs. "Are you serious? He's not even been here a year!"

"He impressed a lot of people with that Exeter-Thomas proposal," says the guy.

"Have you worked with him?" Claudia asks. "He's nice enough, but sort of quiet, and obviously thinks he's much cleverer than he is. He has practically no experience. They're pushing him up the ladder so fast, but I don't think he could ever lead a team. Just not the personality type, y'know? You should hear him when he talks to clients. Makes me cringe just thinking about it."

Their voices fade before he can catch anything else, and he's left with the hum of the fridge and the buzz of the fluorescent light in the ceiling and the embarrassment rushing blood to his face. He catches sight of his reflection in the black door of the microwave across from him and notices that his shirt buttons are done up wrong, and to top it off there's a very obvious bleach mark on the collar. He fills his water bottle up, turns off the faucet as violently as possible, and slumps against the counter, rubbing his tired eyes before he takes his phone out of his back pocket and shoots off a text to Louis. _I hate today._

Louis replies with pictures of an apology note one of his year one's has written him, the handwriting so big it takes up two sides of the paper. _Dear Tommo, i put paint on youre bum and it made SOfee laff and say i am funny. i kno i shuld be sory but i am not. love, Toby_

Zayn smiles helplessly, brittle hurt feelings receding a bit when Louis sends a follow up _u okay? i love you_. He answers with a _yes. love you too_ , even though he'd really like to cry a bit, or leave this place and never come back. When he gets back to his desk, he slides his headphones over his ears and puts on his Angry and Sad playlist, and compartmentalizes like the expert he is. 

He's busy all day, and eternally grateful to Niall for taking a few small projects off Zayn's hands and forcing Zayn to get out of the office for a bit and go with him to the deli for lunch. They don't leave until after seven in the evening, and on their way out their supervisor Ben pops his head out of his office and stops them to ask if he can speak with Zayn.

"'Course, yeah," says Zayn. "See you later, Ni?"

"Yeah," Niall agrees, amused. "I reckon that'll happen."

Ben's office isn't all that scary, all glass and light wood, and as far as bosses go he's been really great ever since Zayn was assigned to his team. He's quite young, and has good taste in music and has never asked any of his people to do anything that he wouldn't do himself, which Zayn respects. It's still a bit nerve-wracking to sit in his office without knowing why.

"Sorry to keep you so late," Ben says, settling into his chair. He looks tired too, shirt collar unbuttoned and suit jacket and tie hanging on the hook on the wall. "Meeting with Cal Aurand over at PhotoDev went long. Just got through my emails."

"It's fine," says Zayn. Ben's reading something on his computer, frowning, and the silence stretches until Zayn can't take it anymore. "Um, Ben? Everything all right?"

Ben nods distractedly, and then sighs heavily and turns away from his screen to face Zayn properly. "Sorry, just catching up. Yes, everything is definitely fine. I just wanted to tell you that Ernest Bell sent me a long email after he spoke with you this morning, and I've just got off the phone with him."

"Oh," says Zayn, throat tight.

"No, don't even worry about it, all right? He's an arse."

Zayn lets out a startled laugh. "Um…"

"You can agree with me," Ben says with a wry grin. "It's okay. I asked you in here to tell you that he's an arse."

Zayn clears his throat awkwardly. He doesn't like to complain about people, especially when he's so new at all this and his reputation isn't all that great just because of his name. "He was just angry," he says.

"He was a dick," Ben says firmly, "and taking his shit mood out on you was a shit thing to do. I know things have been a bit rough lately--"

"They haven't, really," Zayn says, cutting Ben off. He doesn't want to be coddled. Ben taps his pen against the foamy mousepad on his desk, studying Zayn for a long time before he nods.

"You're good at your job, Zayn. Your last name was a foot in the door, but getting hired and your success since is all down to you. You've earned every bit of it. You have incredible potential. I hope you don't let people like Bell and the jealous jerks around here dishearten you."

"I don't," Zayn says honestly. It's difficult to be disheartened in regards to something his heart was never really in in the first place.

"Good," says Ben, and his serious look fades into a smile as Zayn stands up to leave. "We'll see you tomorrow. Maybe even on time?"

Zayn forces a laugh, and escapes as fast as he can.

**

The weird busker kid from this morning is sitting on the sofa in nothing but his pants and the scarf round his head when Zayn gets home. The whole flat smells delicious, like biscuits, and that's even more suspicious than the stranger in his living room. Zayn stares at him, unconsciously bracing himself for a fight that he might not win, considering this guy is bigger than him and more muscled, though his various tattoos - most notably the giant butterfly under his ribcage - don't incite a lot of intimidation.

"Hey, it's you!" says the busker, apparently thrilled. "I saw you this morning. I didn't know you were Zayn." He's got a deep voice and a posh accent and he talks like he smiles, slow and nonsensically.

"Who are you?" Zayn demands. "What are you doing in my flat?"

"Oh," says the busker, frowning. "Did I scare you? Am I being creepy again?"

"If you have to ask the answer is _yes_ , Harold!" Louis's muffled voice advises from down the hall. Zayn is too tired to be as relieved as he should that it's a friend of Louis's and not some maniac come to murder them in their beds. It's been such a long day that the adrenaline didn't really have a chance to spike. 

"My name's not Harold," the busker tells Zayn.

"Yeah?" Zayn asks, entering the flat properly and closing the door. He drops his bag by the door next to Louis's and slips out of his leather jacket, hanging it on the rack. 

"Yeah," says the busker, but he doesn't clarify what his name actually is, either. "I made chocolate biscuits. Do you want one? I can go get it for you."

"Maybe later," Zayn says, toeing his shoes off. Louis appears a few moments later, munching on a chocolate biscuit and carrying a rattling box that turns out to be a nine thousand piece jigsaw puzzle of a Bosch painting that Zayn and Louis bought off Amazon one night last year when they were stoned out of their heads. He drops it onto the seat next to Harry, shoves the rest of the biscuit in his mouth and then leans over the back of the sofa to rest his chin on top of Harry's curly head and his hands on Harry's cheeks. 

"Zayn, this is Harry Styles. Harry, Zayn Malik."

"Great name, man," says Harry. 

"Thanks, dude," Zayn replies, a bit mystified by the earnest compliment. "Yours is good too."

"Thanks," Harry says, looking pleased.

"Adorable, you lot," says Louis. "Harry, I found this for you." He points at the puzzle. "We opened it once and then got bored, and I think it's bigger than any room in the flat so you probably can't finish it, but you might like it. Will give you something to do whilst Zayn and me are at work, anyway, if you don't feel like going out."

"Thanks, Lou," says Harry, meeting Louis's eyes with so much affection that Louis actually blushes and shoves Harry's face away. Zayn has never met anyone who could do that, and he's known Louis since he left the womb. Almost literally. Louis's mum is the midwife who delivered him. Harry traces his fingers over the box. "I like your puzzle. And your Zayn."

"Zayn's my best mate in the world," Louis tells Harry. "We've known each other since we were born."

"In Doncaster?" Harry asks, sounding deeply invested. Zayn's never heard so much genuine sincerity out of any one person. Zayn bites his lip on a smile, trying to ask Louis with his eyebrows if this kid is for real, but Louis's too busy fussing with Harry's hair.

"I'm from Bradford," he says to Harry. "We lived about forty-five minutes apart."

"Distance is meaningless," says Louis in a dramatic voice.

"It is," Harry agrees, smiling. "That's really sweet."

" _Sweet_ ," Louis echoes. He nuzzles his face into Harry's hair, and then pinches his neck until he squawks, before hopping over the back of the sofa and dropping with a plop onto the seat. It jars the puzzle box, and in an attempt to keep it from falling Harry accidentally knocks it onto the floor, where the top comes off and pieces spill everywhere.

"Oops," says Harry.

"Clumsy," Louis says fondly. "Go on then, you can't just leave it there."

Zayn rolls his eyes, but Harry actually slides onto the floor and starts to pick it up. Louis laughs, and Zayn gives him an unimpressed look before crouching down to help. "Louis's a prick."

Louis puts his smelly foot on Zayn's cheek and Zayn smacks it away, glaring. Harry smiles genially. "He's all right. I like him."

"How d'you two know each other?" Zayn asks. He's picking up pieces by the handful and dropping them back in, but after a few moments he realizes that Harry's painstakingly taking them piece by piece with his brow furrowed in concentration, and studying the picture on each one intently before dropping it back into the box. It's so inefficient that Zayn's momentarily stunned into stillness, mouth open. He looks at Louis for an explanation, but Louis's already rolled his eyes skyward and looks long-suffering.

Harry belatedly answers Zayn's questions after careful consideration of a corner piece. "We met in New Zealand."

Zayn's gaze flickers to Louis again worriedly, but his smile is still there, if a bit softer. He nods at Zayn. "I told you about him."

"Oh," says Zayn, comprehension dawning. "This is the guy you..." He makes a circle with his thumb and forefinger and puts two fingers of his other hand through it dirtily.

Louis nods. "The one I fucked all across the Pacific summer before last, yep."

"I fucked him a lot, too," Harry tells Zayn. Apparently he's not easy to embarrass. That must be frustrating as hell for Louis. "It was very equal opportunity."

"Well that's only fair," Zayn says dryly. 

Harry must not hear the sarcasm, because he smiles widely and says, in a commiserating tone like he and Zayn have just found common ground, "I like it best when things are fair, too."

Zayn is helpless to do anything but give him a bewildered thumbs up, and smack Louis on the leg when Louis muffles a derisive snort. Zayn pulls his knees up a bit and leans back on his hands, watching with a more than a little fascination as Harry returns his attention to the pile of jigsaw pieces in front of him, wriggling his fingers in the air, excited to choose his next one. 

"Are you from here, then?" Zayn asks him. "Were you on holiday when you met Lou, too?"

"No," says Harry. "I'm not from here or there. I met Louis in the ocean. He needed me so I came to him."

It's a strange thing to say, and not really an answer at all. Zayn tilts his head back to give Louis a questioning look upside down. "The other way around, really," Louis says, smirking impishly. "You could say I, uh, _saved his skin._ "

Harry looks up at that, as though he can't believe what Louis's just said, and then groans aloud and covers his face with one hand, laughing. "That was awful, Lou."

Louis looks terribly smug. Zayn tilts his head. "I think I'm missing something."

Louis just wiggles his eyebrows cheekily, that look on his face like he's just waiting for Zayn to keep asking. Zayn refuses to indulge, and after another minute of watching Harry sort through puzzle pieces on the floor, Louis lets out a huge sigh and slides off the sofa and onto the floor. He snaps the band of Harry's boxer-briefs and gently shoves him out of the way. "You're taking too long. You can do it in handfuls. See?"

"I like looking at them all," Harry argues, face drawing into a pout. He's even weirder than Zayn's first impression this morning, and people are rarely _beyond_ Zayn's admittedly harsh first judgments. Zayn is impressed, and more than a little intrigued, if he's honest.

"We're going to look at them all later, when we build it," says Louis, dumping the rest in. The top is in Zayn's lap, so he straightens up and puts it back on. It makes a fart sound as he forces it down and after a significant pause Louis and Harry both laugh like bloody children. Louis kicks the box under the coffee table. "Shall we go for dinner?"

Zayn's stomach rumbles at just the thought. He hasn't eaten all day. "I'm starving."

"Pizza," Louis says decisively.

Zayn nods. "And beer."

"I have to poo," Harry announces.

Zayn lifts an eyebrow, and Louis pinches Harry where he's a bit soft just above his hipbones and looks stern when Harry frowns at him. "You don't have to let us know that, mate. Toilet's down the hall where I showed you."

Harry unfolds his long legs and gets to his feet. He hooks his forefingers together above his head and stretches long until he squeaks with pleasure, yawns at them imperiously, and then shakes himself out like a dog and lopes off down the hall. Zayn waits for the bathroom door to close before he jabs an accusing finger at Louis. "Do you actually know him? He was outside this morning. Are you bringing home strays?"

Louis raises an incredulous eyebrow, stretching his legs out in front of him and leaning back on his hands . "That's a bit rich coming for you, innit?"

"Extenuating circumstances," says Zayn, scowling. It had been raining and there'd been a puppy in a box on the road, like something out of a sad children's book. It'd been shivering and whining. Zayn had wrapped it in his coat and brought it home, and Louis had made a huge fuss when he got in, but he'd shared his chicken sandwich with it that night and paid half for the dog food and bed they'd gone out to buy the next morning. They'd only got to keep it a couple weeks before their landlady found out and made them take it to a shelter. "Harry's weirder than Harley was."

Louis purses his lips, considering that for a moment before nodding, looking proud. "That's true."

"D'you know he was on the front step this morning, then?" Zayn asks. "I thought he was a busker."

"Everyone did," says Louis. "Did you hear him play? He's the worst guitarist I've ever heard in my life. I think other people would have to try really hard to play as badly as he does, and he made fifty-eight quid this morning. A whole new level of charming, that one. He's paying for dinner."

"Why didn't he come in?" Zayn says. "You left before I did, was he out there all day?"

Louis shrugs. "I think so. He rang like, a couple weeks ago, and said he was going to come soon, but didn't really set a day, so I wasn't expecting him. He wandered around some but was there when I got home. He knows which flat is ours, obviously. And he doesn't have a phone anymore, so he was sort of stuck."

"How can you just, not have a phone?" says Zayn.

"He gave his to a tramp in Soho, apparently. He's a bit odd," says Louis. He lifts his hand to his mouth and starts chewing on his thumbnail, studying Zayn with an uncharacteristically nervous look in his eyes. "Do you like him?"

Zayn only just met him, but Louis sounds like he might actually be upset if Zayn says no. Zayn frowns thoughtfully. "Yeah, man. I mean, he's the one that you said sort of saved your life, right?"

Louis looks away and fusses with his hair, embarrassed, and Zayn feels bad for bringing it up. He crawls over Louis and sits on his stretched-out legs, cupping the nape of his neck and touching their foreheads together. "Hey," he says quietly.

Louis laughs, patting his back. "You're so needy," he says. Zayn grins and kisses the side of his head, old guilt aching in his chest. 

"It is him, though, right?" he prompts.

"Yeah," Louis murmurs. He's keeping his hands busy, idly undoing a few of the middle buttons of Zayn's shirt. "It's him."

"Then of course I like him," says Zayn, and Louis smiles, genuinely relieved. Zayn squeezes his hip. "Is he in London long?"

Louis shakes his head. "Nah, he's only going to stay a couple weeks. Do you mind if he stays here? He'll be fine at that hostel down at the end of the road, if not."

Zayn flicks Louis in the forehead and crosses his eyes at him. "'Course I don't mind, bro, don't be stupid," he says. And then, gently, "What about Bressie, though? Will he be okay with it?"

"Why wouldn't he be?" Louis asks, perplexed.

"Oh, are you guys like, doing an open relationship sort of thing?" Zayn hopes so, because Bressie's a perfect gentleman who treats Louis like a prince, but he's also six and a half feet tall, eighteen stone and an ex-rugby player with excellent reflexes, and Harry just tripped over his own feet on his way to the toilet and then apologized to the floor. That fight would be brutal and finished very quickly.

Louis looks very confused for a few moments before his eyes widen in realization. "Oh! No, we're not. I mean, me and Bressie aren't like, properly together yet, so it doesn't matter, but Harry and me aren't going to sleep together." He tilts his head thoughtfully, and then amends, "Well we're going to _sleep_ together, but not have sex. We're not really like that."

"Oh," says Zayn, relieved. He wants to ask more, because he has a feeling there was a lot left out of what Louis told of him his time away two years ago, but it's not the right time. He scoots back a bit on Louis's thighs so he can see him better, and cuffs him gently under the chin. "Thank god. Niall would kill you."

Louis pokes him in the cheek. "Me and Bressie are good," he says, and Zayn would make fun of the lovesick smile that curls lips if it didn't make his heart melt a bit just to see it. "Really good. Harry wants to meet him. I'm not worried, so you shouldn't be either."

"Cool," says Zayn. Down the hall, Harry's bursts into a TLC song, three beats of tempo and his voice muffled through the walls. Louis giggles raspily and Zayn huffs a laugh. "What's his story, man? He's really not from here?"

"He travels," says Louis, as though he's choosing his words very carefully, which isn't something Louis often does. "I think he wants to stop now, though, so he had to come here. I have something of his that he can't go home without."

Huh. "That sounds...ominous," Zayn says.

Louis crinkles his nose. "It does a bit, doesn't it? I should write for Game of Thrones."

"Mm," says Zayn, searching Louis's face suspiciously.

"Don't look at me like that, I didn't steal anything," says Louis, affronted. "He asked me to keep it for him until he needed it back."

"Are you gonna tell me what 'it' is?" Zayn says, exasperated.

"No," says Louis. Zayn prods him sharply in the belly, and Louis blows a raspberry and twists Zayn's nipple until Zayn can wrap around him again, pinning Louis's arms between them tightly so he can't use them, laughing into his hair. Louis's swearing loudly when Harry returns a few seconds later, still only wearing pants and rubbing his palms against his bare thighs to dry them. He peers curiously over the sofa and his face splits into delighted smile at the sight of them.

"Oh! Are we having a cuddle?"

" _No,_ " says Louis, but Harry's already stopped listening. He drops to his knees behind Louis and wraps his long arms around both of them, hugging them tightly. Louis laughs infectiously into Zayn's shirt, and Zayn smiles at Harry over Louis's shoulder. Harry beams, so genuine that Zayn feels his cheeks burn, and he finds himself relaxing, all the stress from his day draining out of him, leaning into the pressure of Harry's big hands stretched across the breadth of his back. 

 

tbc


End file.
